BalrajIvyCap Ventures, a Mumbai-based growth-stage venture capital firm, has raised $214 million (~Rs 1,608 crore) in the first close of its third fund. The company seeks a final close of Rs 2,000 crores, but depending on the market and the fund strategic plan, it may go up to Rs 2500 crores.
Vikram Gupta, Founder & Managing Partner, IvyCap Ventures
Two-thirds of Fund III’s capital was raised from existing investors, while new investors included institutional investors such as banks, insurance providers, and government organizations, as well as some family offices. The venture capital firm, which invests in Series A stage startups in India, seeks to continue investing in consumer internet, deep-tech, fintech, health-tech, ed-tech, and SaaS startups.
IvyCap Ventures will have an average cheque size of Rs 30 crore – Rs 40 crore as its first cheque in 20-30 Indian startups. It will also set aside about 20 percent of the corpus from Fund II for co-investment in its existing portfolio. The surplus cash will be allotted as a complement to the total portfolio.
Vikram Gupta, Founder & Managing Partner, IvyCap Ventures Advisors Pvt Ltd, said, “We have proven the model of working through the Alumni ecosystem of the IITs, IIMs, and a few other top educational institutions of India. Our passion lies in building the Endowment ecosystems in India.”
IvyCap Ventures, founded in 2011 by Vikram Gupta and later joined by Ashish Wadhwani, Vishal Gauri, and Anju Gupta, oversees a portfolio of over 30 startups. It has already successfully made exits, including a partial spinoff in HR IT startup Purplle in 2021, when its Fund 1 picked up a 22x cash return on investment.
IvyCap Ventures’ last two funds, which wrapped at Rs 240 crore and Rs 535 crore in 2014 and 2020, respectively, with investments in 10 and 23 firms. BlueStone, Bidgely, Clovia, Convosight, Elucidata, ftcash, and Purplle are some of the startups in its portfolio. Its recent exits include Leixir and Pharmarack. Fund III has recently made investments in portfolio startups Miko and Biryani By Kilo.
For global investors, the Indian startup ecosystem is a rapidly expanding opportunity. Indian startups have outpaced the total investment recorded in 2020, when venture funding totaled $33.8 billion, raising $42 billion in 2021.
The startup ecosystem in India has raised $42 billion in 1,583 funding rounds, with an average transaction size of $32 million. Meanwhile, since 2014, India has fostered more than 57K startups, who have collectively attracted over $112 billion in funding, a figure that is expanding at an exponential rate year on year. This features 85+ companies in the unicorn club and 17 startups being listed on stock exchanges.